She threw open the door of the sitting-room. "Here's a gentleman that wants to see you, Mas' Putnam. Leastwise he asked for Lindy fust." Samanthy left the room, slamming the door after her. "My name is Sawyer," said Quincy, addressing the old lady and gentleman who were seated in rocking chairs. "I met your daughter at the concert given at the Town Hall New-Year's night." Mrs. Putnam said, "Glad to see ye, Mr. Sawyer; have a chair." As Quincy laid his hand upon the chair, the old gentleman called out in a voice that would have startled a bull of Bashan, "What's his name, Heppy?" Mrs. Putnam answered in a shrill voice with an edge like a knife, "Sawyer." "Sawyer!" yelled the man. "Any relation to Jim Sawyer that got drunk, beat his wife, starved his children, and finally ended up in the town Poorhouse?" Quincy shook his head and replied, "I think not. I don't live here; I live in Boston." "Du tell," said Mrs. Putnam. "How long you been here?" Quincy replied that he arrived two days after Christmas. "Where be you stoppin'?" asked Mrs. Putnam. Quincy answered, "I am boarding at Deacon Mason's." "He's a nice old gentleman," said Mrs. Putnam, "and Mrs. Mason's good as they make 'em. Her daughter Huldy's a pert young thing, she's pretty and she knows it." Quincy remarked that he thought Miss Mason was a very nice young lady. "Oh, yes," said Mrs. Putnam, "you young fellers never look more than skin deep. Now the way she trifles with that young 'Zekiel Pettengill I think's shameful. They ust to have a spat every week about something but they allus made it up. But I heard Lindy say that after you come here, 'Zeke he got huffy and Huldy she got independent, and they hain't spoke to each other nigh on two weeks." This was a revelation to Quincy, but he was to hear more about it very soon. "How long be you goin' to stay, Mr. Sawyer?" "I haven't decided," said Quincy. "What's your business?" persisted Mrs. Putnam. "I am a lawyer," replied Quincy. Mrs. Putnam looked at him inquiringly and said, "Be n't you rather young for a lawyer? How old be you, anyway?" Quincy decided to take a good humored part in his cross examination and said without a smile, "I am twenty-three years, two months, sixteen days old." "Be you?" exclaimed Mrs. Putnam. "I shouldn't have said you were a day over nineteen." Quincy never felt his youth so keenly before. He determined to change the conversation. "Did you attend the concert, Mrs. Putnam?" "No," said she. "Pa and me don't go out much; he's deefer'n a stone post and I've had the rheumatiz so bad in my knees for the last five years that I can't walk without crutches;" and she pointed to a pair that lay on the floor beside her chair. During this conversation old Mr. Putnam had been eying Quincy very keenly. He blurted out, "He's a chip of the old block, Heppy; he looks just as Jim did when he fust came to this town. Did yer say yer had an Uncle Jim?" Quincy shook his head.